


Light as Featherweave

by beatingthebinary



Category: Campaign: Skyjacks (Podcast), Illimat (Board Game)
Genre: Size Difference, Spoilers though Ep10, there's some description of past character injuries but no one is hurt in scene, though that's true for Gable with anyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 20:56:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17836052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beatingthebinary/pseuds/beatingthebinary
Summary: The morning after a long and painful night, Gable offers Dref some respite from the stress of his many roles on the Uhuru.





	Light as Featherweave

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I listened to Dref and Gable's conversation in Episode 10 on repeat for a while, and then I admired the fan art of it, and then I got antsy about the lack of further fan material and decided to add to it myself. This is the morning after the battle.  
> 

Dref awoke to the feeling of clean laundry being thrown at his head. After a fairly frantic evening of tending to Wendell and Gable, the ship’s cleric and part-time necromancer had fallen into a deep and troubled sleep, his body shivering and his breathing somewhat pained due the vicious bruises that were blooming around his neck courtesy of Wendell’s new and unsettlingly strong necrotic arm. Dref ached in more places than he had known he had nerves to ache with (a worrying feeling for a physician) and his mouth tasted like copper. The smell of laundered linen and the sensation of fabric hitting his face made for a faint and puzzling contrast. Moving very gingerly, he rolled to the side and pushed a clean shirt off of his face to take in the source of the fabric attack. Gable stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame with an ease that would have seemed more natural if they hadn’t clearly been favoring their un-wounded shoulder.  
  
“I’d say sorry, but I’m not, really. I just wanted to see if I could still get any distance with this arm.” Gable’s smile looked very tired - an effect, Dref thought, that was even more striking when you considered how much of the history of existence they must have spent in wakefulness. He wondered how often those kinds of observations were going to layer over his interactions with Gable now.

He was still trying to gather his thoughts when the angel in his doorway spoke again, their voice gentle (even more impressively gentle when one considers their stature and the fact that they must have learned language long before any mortal being - oh, quit it, Dref, you can’t do this at every moment.)  
  
“Thanks for the other night. It wasn’t... good, obviously, but it was a lot better than it could have been with someone else trying to handle it all. You’re quite the multitalented physician, Dref.”

Oh, sweet relief, a statement with a fairly easy social response. Dref propped himself up on one elbow to better meet Gable’s eyes. “Thank _you_ for the other night! I mean, o-o-obviously it would have been preferable had such measures n-n-not become n-n-necessary, but since they were, I am glad to know that, well, that is to say-" Knowing what a simple response _should_ sound like did not necessarily make one easier to formulate.

“I know what you mean, Dref, it’s all right. Just because I wasn’t hoping on spending the evening bleeding heavily and using up so much of your pain medication doesn’t mean I’m not glad you were there to help.” Gable seemed more awake and articulate by the moment. Dref wished he could keep up.

“Thank you. Just because I don’t relish performing f-f-first aid in such p-p-panicked circumstances doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do it again if needed.”

A faint smirk from the doorway. “And in your underwear at that.”

“Oh! I - er - wasn’t sure how m-m-memorable that was g-g-given the situation.”

“I have a pretty good memory, Dref. I’ve been using it for a very long time.”

“Since the beginning.”

Gable paused, looking between Dref and the doorway, before making a decision. The door closed, and the angel walked into the room. They pulled a chair up next to Dref’s bed and sat in it with the resigned grace of someone who knows that any chair they approach will likely be too small, but that it will have to do.

“Yes, since the beginning. I haven’t met anyone quite like you before, though.”

“Nor I you, though I realize that is s-s-significantly less surprising.”

“A fair point. What was it you called me? Extraordinary?”

“Yes, I believe so.”

“And you asked if you could help with the pain.”

“I did. I’m sorry for the presumption in that, obviously you have l-l-lifetimes more experience with it than I do, b-b-but I suppose it was a reflex of sorts on my part, and I hoped-"

Gable’s eyes were on him, looked particularly dark and soft. Dref wondered if the temporary oxygen deprivation from Wendell’s unconscious attack was having residual effects on his vision.

“Dref, I’m sure you’ve done many things you’re rightfully sorry for, but that doesn’t have to be on that list. It was a sweet offer, and a very human one.”

“I’m still letting that sink in. The not human part.”  
  
There had been a time when Dref had viewed Gable as simply one of the unusually imposing sorts of people that tended to appear on airships perhaps even more often than on land. Tall? Yes, startlingly so, even, but not outside the limits of human possibility. Strong? Undoubtedly, but many practiced airiners do nearly unbelievable things in battle. Uncertain in age? Arguably, but the sky wears on everyone in different ways - some weather fast, and some take to it brightly. Even now, with the knowledge of the previous night buzzing in his mind, Dref did not believe that anything about Gable lacked equivalence in humans, with the exception of their scars, and perhaps something else hidden, some divine energy or drive that he could only guess at. He remembered the copper mask and the greatsword rippling with fire, and tried desperately to focus instead on the swordless, flameless angel who sat in front of him now with their face uncovered.  
  
“Would you like another look?”  
  
Dref froze. He inhaled deeply to confirm that Gable’s words were not the result of an oxygen-deprived hallucination.  
  
“Well, I - yes, of course, y-y-you know how I feel about that. B-b-but I don’t want you to think that my interest in you is all on the level of a r-r-researcher-“

“Your interest in me?” The smirk was back.

“I - that is to say-" Dref was dead. No one had ever been as dead as he was, and he of all people should know. The sheer awkwardness of the situation was going to immolate him into fine grey ash within the next second, if not sooner.

“Shh. How about we make it even, then?”

“What do you mean?”

“You get shirtless, too. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, thanks to your... minimalist first aid attire.”  
  
Dref’s eyes went wide, and he began to unbutton his shirt with shaking hands. He moved very slowly, guided by the internal sense that this whole situation was like spotting a rare bird at rest on a branch - that any wrong move would break the spell and send those great wings back into motion, heading far out of sight.

Gable, significantly less overwhelmed, let him fumble for a moment before leaning in to help him with the last few buttons. With Dref’s shirt open, they took his hands in theirs and guided them up to their own chest.  
  
“I could use a hand with mine. Buttons haven’t been too hard, but getting anything on and off over my shoulder is going to be a bit of a challenge until it heals.”  
  
Gable kept their hands resting over Dref’s, stabilizing his unsteady fingers as he undid their shirt buttons, then let their arms drop so that he could ease the shirt carefully down over their shoulders - first the bandaged one, which he uncovered with a sudden smoothness that Gable attributed to some sort of internal cleric’s reflex around injuries, and then the (relatively) uninjured one, at which point his anxious shaking returned. The angel ducked their head forward and rested their elbows on their knees, offering Dref an easy top-down view of their back from his seat on the bed.  
  
Dref’s voice, already gone quiet from nerves, grew even softer in reverence. “W-w-words cannot convey what it means to have the opportunity to see this at all, Gable, much less more than once.”

“Well, I owe you. Not just for last night, for everything. For your care for the crew and for your… management of this whole strange situation.” There was a pause. Dref couldn’t decide if it would be more or less reassuring to be able to see Gable’s face at the moment. “And it’s… nice to be able to show someone. It’s been a while since I let my shoulders breathe in new company.”  
  
Dref tried very hard to avoid thinking about how much time “a while” might signify for an angel, and failed.  
  
“I-i-if it helps you at all, in any way - I may not be able to manage this pain for you, but I can at least provide some respite from the secrecy of-" The end of the sentence died in his throat as Gable looked up.

“What do _you_ need respite from right now, o weary physician? You had a very long night last night, and not just because of me.” Gable’s uninjured arm reached out, and a hand that Dref knew could wield a greatsword longer than he was tall gently brushed the still-blooming ring of bruises around his neck. His felt himself draw breath sharply, and noticed in a dizzy, unbelieving way that it wasn’t from pain.

“I could hardly call it a matter of _need_ , but I suppose one might - that is to say, I _want_ -“ Words were impossible. If he hadn’t died before shirts started coming off, he was certainly dead now.

Gable smiled. “Not every form of closeness has to be a matter of necessary emergency.”

“I-i-i know that.”

“Try to really remember that right now, and I think we’ll be all right.” Gable slid a hand down his back and looked at him with a gentle gaze that one could describe as angelic, although Dref estimated that practically anyone would qualify as divinely calm if compared to himself at present. He met their eyes long enough to nod as encouragingly as his tired and shaking frame allowed, and then leaned forward into their arms.  
  
Gable lifted him from the bed like he was nothing, bringing him to rest astride one of their legs. They kept a hand on the small of his back while the other traveled upwards to stroke his hair and pull their faces closer. Dref brought both of his own hands up to cup Gable’s face as they kissed. Well aware of his own frail physique, he knew objectively that most of his friends - indeed most people on the ship - could likely pick him up, but it felt different to have Gable do it. It was as though he weighed no more than a feather. No, not a feather! Even lost in this haze of sensation, that comparison felt a bit too on the nose. Featherweave, perhaps. Yes, that felt better - he was like a featherweave sail, fine and insubstantial, fluttering and filling with heat from somewhere deep in the hold of the ship moving beneath him - Gable, tall and grey and powerful, full of the secrets of the sky and beyond, a ship that could fly him upwards forever and never want or need to touch land.


End file.
